This course is directed toward the attainment of three interdependent objectives:
1) to develop an understanding of strategy implementation in complex organizations,
2) to understand how organizational planning, design, control, and human resource
decisions are interdependent and critical to successful implementation, and 3) to
develop a sensitivity to the "realities" of strategy implementation in "real-world"
organizations.

This course is intended to help you see ways to advance strategy in an organization.
Our
starting points will be two: you as an actor in the organization and the strategy
you and
other members of your organization wish to pursue. We will assume that the
organization has already determined what strategy to pursue. Developing a strategy
is
an extremely important issue, but we will consider strategy design only as it is
related to
the problems of implementation. Instead, we will direct our attention to the problems
of
pushing the strategy forward in the organization.

This course will review recent comparative research and debates on “varieties of capitalism”,
concentrating on the so-called “triad” regions of North America, Western Europe, and East Asia.
Are there distinct national models or family types of capitalism across these regions? How far
and in what ways do developed capitalist economies differ from one another in their social
organization, institutional embeddedness, and modes of governance? What are the implications
of such differences for industrial specialization, technological innovation, and economic
performance in a competitive world market? How tightly coupled and mutually
supportive/constraining are the different domains and institutional structures within advanced
capitalist societies, from product, capital, and labor markets to corporate governance, education
and training, employment relations, and social welfare provision? Are current processes of
globalization and regionalization eroding the coherence and distinctiveness of national
economies? In tackling such questions, this course will combine a comparative approach with an
analysis of interdependence between competing systems, as well as a discussion of tendencies
towards convergence and/or divergence.

Work, like the biblical poor, has always been with us. But its social organization
and
technological content have varied widely across time, space, and industrial sector.
Employment
or paid work, by contrast, is inherently a social construction, whose boundaries
in relation to
other types of activity like household labor, leisure, retirement, or unemployment
are
institutionally and culturally defined. In most developed countries, employment is
also a social
and legal status, which carries with it distinctive rights and obligations (at least
for certain
sections of the workforce), such as protection from arbitrary dismissal, subordination
to
managerial authority, procedures for collective representation, and entitlements
to benefits like
paid vacations, pensions, and health care. Both the boundaries of employment and
the status
associated with it are thus historically contingent constructs which differ significantly
from one
country to another, and are currently being renegotiated in response to a variety
of pressures,
from globalization and technological innovation to the expansion of the service sector,
demographic trends, and changing household/family structures.
This course is designed to provide a selective introduction to key themes in the
sociology of
work and employment. It brings comparative, historical, and theoretical perspectives
to bear on
understanding contemporary transformations of work and employment in the ‘new
economy’,
with particular emphasis on the United States, Western Europe, and Japan. Topics
covered will
include: Fordism and post-Fordism; scientific management and mass production; flexible
specialization and lean production; the diffusion of new forms of work organization
such as
teams, cells, and project groups; the relationship between technology and workforce
skills;
training systems and skill formation; the social construction of employment; the
‘invention’ and
redefinition of unemployment and retirement; household labor and women’s employment;
job
stability and the growth of non-standard forms of employment; workers’ changing
expectations
and experience of careers at work; collective representation and employment regulation;
employment policies for a new economy.
The course is open to advanced undergraduate and graduate students. It will be taught
through a
mixture of lectures and in-class discussions.

The course provides a systematic presentation of the factors to be considered when
setting price, and shows how pricing alternatives are developed. Analytical methods
are developed and new approaches are explored for solving pricing decisions.

Rapid development of new interactive media such as on-line services and the World
Wide Web has surprised both consumers and marketers alike. In this early but fast
developing stage, it is difficult to estimate its likely impact on marketing functions.
The objective of this course is to provide insights into the converging logic of
traditional marketing in the information age from managerial and consumers’
perspectives. It is to be recognized that within the marketing discipline this is
a relatively new field of study and as a consequence the existing literature so far
does not present any constructive theories or models. We will examine the impact
of new technologies on Internet users e.g. consumers (and business to business marketers)
within the framework of the traditional methods of marketing.